The Last Trumpet Ministries

Adding to yesterday’s study of plērōma (G4138), another way of translating this word is "domination" or similar forms. In fact, this translation fits in all the instances of the various Greek forms used in Ephesians:

• Eph_1:23 —"[The church], which is His body, the [domination] of Him that [dominates] all in all."

• Eph_4:10 —"that He might [dominate] all things."

• Eph_4:13 —"unto the measure of the stature of the [domination] of Christ."

• Eph_5:18 —"be [dominated] with the Spirit."

With that in mind, we could translate Eph_3:19 this way: "That you may be filled up to all the dominance of God." To be filled with God’s fullness means we are emptied of self and are totally dominated by Him. Let us express it thusly: To be filled with the fullness of God is to be dominated by His dominance.

At this point, we might ask, "But how is it possible to be totally dominated by God? How can our every thought, impulse, value, and goal be totally dominated by God?"

An illustration should help. If we blow air into a balloon, we can truthfully say, "This balloon is full of air." But we can then blow a little more air into the balloon and say, "It’s still full, but bigger." Likewise, we can be filled with His fullness today, but we will be fuller tomorrow. This is indeed an ever-continuing process. How tragic it is when Christians, laymen and preachers alike, think they have grown enough or think they know enough! Let us each ask ourselves, "Am I being filled with all ‘the fullness of God’? Am I being dominated by His dominance?"

Charles Spurgeon wrote, "The more we know the more are we conscious of our ignorance of that which is unknown." He goes on to quote Dr. Thomas Chalmers, nineteenth-century theologian, professor of theology at Edinburgh, and one of the greatest preachers of that age. Borrowing an illustration from his love of mathematics, Chalmers would tell his students, "The wider the diameter of light, the greater is the circumference of darkness." In other words, as Spurgeon concludes, "The more a man knows, he comes at more points into contact with the unknown." Someone else has expressed it even more succinctly, "Knowledge is the discovery of ignorance."

Scriptures for Study: What promise does Rom_15:14 declare? Even in tribulation, with what was Paul filled in 2Co_7:4?